Hi there! I've been meaning to get back to this. Anyway, this is my take on the next episode.
Chapter Seventeen
Stuck in the Middle Ages with You
Top Secret Weapons Laboratory-USA-3:49 AM
The young scientist sat perched over his work, questioning when the last time he slept was.
But all thoughts of sleep were soon forgotten as he held up the small, pyramid shaped device he had just finished, smiling in satisfaction.
Of course, he didn't expect the gust of wind that knocked all thought of work out of his mind.
Nor the blinding flash of light, nor the whinny of a horse.
When the light faded, the scientist looked up to see an armored figure, (knight's armor, to be exact.) coming towards him, riding an armored horse.
The scientist didn't have time to think before the knight, or whatever it was, scooped him up and dragged him into the swirling portal that had appeared behind him.
Beverly Hills High School-10:53 AM
Looking over Sam's shoulder, Sean watched with fascination as Alex poured one drop of a purple fluid from a beaker into a test tube filled with light pink liquid.
"So, what do you think?" Alex asked her three friends.
"Ooh," Clover said in awe. "That would be a great shade of eyeshadow!"
"Clover!" Sam reprimanded. "We're not cruising the cosmetics counter at the mall! This is a science lab, and I want to get an A!"
"That makes two of us," Sean broke in. He had been doing poorly in chemistry lately, and Clover's disinterest in it wasn't helping much.
A boy walked by them, passing Clover a flyer.
Looking at it, she practically lit up like a Christmas tree.
"Well, here's something that's sure to rate an A+ on the social scale," she announced with glee.
Sean took the flyer from her, reading it and then showing it to Alex and Sam.
"Cool!" Sam said with excitement. "A Halloween party!"
"With a costume contest, "Sean added.
"And a first-place cash prize worth three totally cool outfits from the mall!"
Clover opened her eyes, looking at Sean.
"Or four. I know you don't like shopping as much as us, Sean, but we could find something for you."
Before Sean could say any more a hand snatched the flyer away from Clover.
They turned to see Mandy behind them along with Dominique and Caitlin.
"I hate to squash your hopes," she mocked. "But I'll be winning that contest hands down."
Clover snatched it back. "Not with that costume, you won't!"
Mandy looked down at her purple dress and white lab coat.
"Excuse me?" she asked. "What costume?"
Clover raised her eyebrows mischeivously.
"Oh, aren't you dressed as a wannabe teen queen today?" she asked. "Or were they having a sale on 'So Two Years Ago' at the mall?"
Mandy growled in anger before walking away.
"Point: Clover," Sean said, before the girls turned to him.
"So, who won the contest last year?" Alex asked.
"I don't know," he answered. "I didn't go last year."
"Really?" Sam asked. "How come?"
"Let's just say being a W.O.O.H.P instructor really damages your social life."
"And I thought being a regular old spy was a pain in the butt!" Clover complained.
That was when Alex's test tube began to spew purple smoke.
"Alex, quick!" Sam warned, noticing.
But they couldn't do much about it as the smoke obscured them from view and kept anyone from seeing them fall through a trap door.
"What the hell?!" Sean shouted as he fell through.
They all slid down the chute leading to Jerry's office, landing in four cushioned magenta chairs.
"Hello," Jerry's voice greeted them.
He was sitting at his desk, observing the four spies.
"That must have been a real... blast."
The spies looked at him, unimpressed.
"You might want to keep working on those puns, Jer," Sean said, gently.
Without missing a beat, Jerry went on with the briefing.
"Now let's get started."
The lights turned off as a digital film projector lowered from the ceiling, shining onto the wall.
It showed an image of a young man in a lab coat working on... Sean couldn't tell what it was, it was too small.
"A renowned scientist was abducted from a U.S military lab late last night."
They watched in shock as a gust of wind knocked the scientist off guard. It only got stranger as an armored figure on horseback scooped the scientist up, carrying him away.
Alex gasped.
"Where'd that weirdo in the hood come from?" she asked.
The rider vanished into what Sean could only describe as a portal.
"That has yet to be determined," Jerry answered, as the room's lighting returned to normal, and the projector disappeared.
"The scientist's kidnapping is the third in a string of strange abductions."
"Who else was kidnapped?" Sam asked.
"A military general and a surveillance expert, all from the same facility."
Clover looked at her watch.
"Jer, we're in a bit of a rush to get to the mall and skim some great Halloween costumes. Could we skip the details and get right to the part about the mission thingy?"
"Very well," Jerry said, patiently. "Figure out how and why this hooded horseman is abducting these military experts, then stop him."
"Seems simple enough," Sean said.
Then he looked to the girls in pity.
"Sorry, girls. Looks like we're gonna miss that costume contest."
"Yeah," Alex agreed. "Looks like we're gonna have to put our dreams of beating Mandy on pause."
"I can multitask," Clover insisted.
Jerry handed the teens four backpacks, one circular, three heart-shaped.
"Inside," he informed. "You'll find your gadgets. Pogo Bounce Sandals, Laser Heat Curling Irons, All-Weather Umbrellas, Head for Cover Hoverboards, a mighty fine Expandable Mascara Brush and last but not least, Cat Fight Gloves with retractable claws."
"Now there's a gadget made for Mandy!" Clover said.
"Don't forget to say 'Geronimo!'" Jerry added.
Four seatbelts fastened themselves around the spies and a metallic shell with a glass pane enclosed them.
The dome, which was what Sean deduced they were in, lifted up off the floor and into a hole in the ceiling.
The lab, which turned out to be in Arizona, was mostly deserted except for the truck the spies' vehicle dropped them on before soaring back to W.O.O.H.P headquarters.
They landed on the tarp, stopping all their screaming immediately, Clover smiled weakly.
"Geronimo?" she said, finally getting what Jerry meant.
The scientist whom they met with was close to calling security on them before Sean pulled out his W.O.O.H.P ID badge, the girls following suit.
Taking them into one of the buildings, he showed them the lab the scientist from the night before disappeared from.
"For the past year," he began. "Our team has been perfecting a high-tech, cutting-edge laser beam for the military. It's an Electronic Nullification Device otherwise known as... the E.N.D."
"Cool!" Alex exclaimed, pumping a fist. "I mean, how interesting."
"We've examined the surveillance tape," Sam stated. "It appears whoever took your colleague took the E.N.D as well."
"And whatever they want with it, it can't be good," Sean added.
"Well," the scientist responded. "If it's the E.N.D they were after, then they're going to be mighty disappointed."
He held a small, black, rectangular remote with a red button in the middle.
"The E.N.D can only be controlled by this detonator. Without it, the E.N.D is useless."
A sudden gust of wind cut them off along with an equally abrupt flash of bright light. Shielding their eyes momentarily, they looked up to see the same horseman from the surveillance footage galloping towards them.
The spies jumped out of the way.
"Look out!" Sam shouted.
But the scientist was too late to even flinch before the horseman scooped him up like his colleague.
Clover indicated a cart nearby, signaling her teammates to jump on.
"Not so fast, horse boy!" she yelled after the armored rider, who by now was riding into the same circle of light Sean saw in the surveillance footage.
Sandwiched between Sam and Alex, Sean couldn't see where they were. But that didn't seem to matter as they fell off the impromptu ride Clover had found for them.
"Whoa!" all four yelled as they finally landed.
"What happened?" Sean asked, coming to his senses.
"Where are we?" Sam added.
Clover looked up. "I don't think we're in Beverly Hills anymore."
They looked below the hill they had landed on to see dozens of tiny houses with roofs covered with straw. A village, Sean reasoned. Probably somewhere other than Beverly Hills, or even California for that matter.
The stone castle looming in the background only confirmed it.
"Oh no!" Alex shouted. "You don't think we're in... The Valley?!"
"Uh, Alex?" Sean said. "The Valley doesn't have castles. I don't even think we're on the same continent anymore."
That was when the horseman from the lab rode past them a little further up the slope.
"You, guys!" Sam announced. "He's getting away!"
Sean followed the girls close behind as Clover came to a man in Medieval-style clothing pulling a horse.
She wrestled the reins away from him before handing her his watch.
"Here," she said, casually. "Collateral."
Then she led the horse away from its owner before she tried to hop on... and failed miserably, faceplanting in the dirt.
"Bad horsey!" she shouted as Sean, Alex, and Sam caught up with her.
"Clover," Sean gently scolded. "You can't just take-"
"Help!" the man behind them shouted. "I'm being plundered by evil witches!"
"Huh?!" all four teens asked.
That was when they were surrounded by dozens of people dressed in similar clothes. And Sean couldn't help but notice nearly all of them were looking very angry.
"See what I mean?" he asked Clover under his breath.
"We're not witches!" Sam tried to explain. "We're from Beverly Hills!"
"Tis our duty to our beloved king to rid the empire of evil witches!" a woman exclaimed.
"We're not familiar with these hills of which you speak," a man broke in, icily.
That was when they noticed these people were starting to take out pitchforks, and Sean knew it was only a matter of time before they threw torches into the mix.
Clover, panicking, got on the horse she tried to steal.
Sean, without thinking, got on with her.
"Be right back!" they called out to Sam and Alex as the horse galloped away.
Sam and Alex, looking to each other in confusion, ran off after the other two, the angry mob rapidly pursuing them.
"Who are these people?!" Alex asked fearfully.
"Apparently, Halloween came early this year!" Sam responded between breaths.
Unfortunately, they were so busy running for their lives that they didn't see the well before they fell into it.
But thankfully, the mob passed it without even bothering to look down into it.
Sam and Alex sat in a shallow pit of water at the bottom of the well, relieved and at the same time confused.
"That didn't go exactly as planned," Alex said, exhausted.
"At least we lost those goons," Sam pointed out, unzipping her backpack and tacking out the bright red sandals Jerry had given them before leaving California.
"Now, let's use our Pogo Bounce Sandals to get out of here and find Clover and Sean!"
In less than twenty seconds, the two girls bounced out of the well with the same force as that of a kangaroo, then hopped off along the path they last saw the horse take their friends.
The horse certainly got tired very quickly, though if he were a horse, Sean admitted he would probably be exhausted too from carrying two people at once.
He looked back behind them.
No one was following them.
"I think we lost them," he informed Clover.
Clover sighed in relief at that.
"What was that about?" Sean asked no one in particular.
"No idea," Clover answered. "But did you hear what they called me? I mean, hello, I'm too cute to be a witch. Mandy, on the other hand."
Sean chuckled.
"While we're on the subject," she continued. "Do you have any good ideas for a costume?"
"Uh..." Sean droned, the thought not really occurring to him. He looked around, hoping Clover wouldn't notice his hesitation.
All around them were...
"What about a tree?" he suggested, then immediately regretted it.
Clover furrowed her eyebrows.
"Great," she said sarcastically. "Just the costume I needed to beat Mandy! A 'before' picture of toilet paper!"
Sean sighed.
At least I didn't say "horse." he thought.
"No good deed goes unpunished."
That was when Clover's Compowder began to chime.
Reaching into her backpack, Clover took the device out, opening it.
"Hello?" she said to a screen full of static. After a while, Jerry came into focus.
"Hello?" Sean echoed, looking over Clover's shoulder.
"Jerry, it's us! Where are we?"
"Hold on," Jerry responded. "I'm doing a global positioning search to pinpoint your location."
Almost instantly, he pulled out a sheet of paper.
Reading it, he looked bewildered.
"Oh, this doesn't look right. My data says you're in Medieval England circa 1136 AD."
"What?" Sean and Clover asked in unison.
"Wait a second," Clover said.
"Hooded horsemen?"
"Talk of witches?" Sean added.
"And a group of people who've never heard of Beverly Hills?" Clover picked up.
Clover facepalmed.
"Of course! We're stuck in the Middle Ages!"
Sean's jaw dropped.
"Oh my!" Jerry exclaimed.
"Jerry," Sean said. "How are we gonna get back? We don't even know how we got here."
"I'm working on it, Sean," Jerry responded.
"Please hurry, Jerry!" Clover urged. "We want out of this Dungeons and Dragons nightmare, ASAP!"
"Clover, Sean?" Jerry asked, as the screen began to bug up again.
"Are you there? I can't hear you."
Then the screen went dark completely.
"Jerry, wait!" Clover exclaimed. "Come back!"
She shook her Compowder furiously.
"I'm supposed to be at a Halloween party tonight! And there's a big difference between fashionably late and M.I.A!"
She closed the Compowder.
"Forget it, Clover," Sean said. "I'm surprised he could reach us here. We'll have to find a way back on our own."
Clover sighed. "You're right. But how?"
Sean rubbed his chin, deep in thought. Then he snapped his fingers.
"The horseman, we saw him back at the lab and then again here. So maybe if we find where he hides out..."
"Then we find the time machine he used to get here," Clover finished for him.
"I hope so," Sean added. "Cause I don't want to think about what'll happen if we stay here too long!"
"What do you think could happen?"
Sean rubbed his arm nervously.
"Well... ever hear of Joan of Arc?"
The horrified look on Clover's face answered Sean's question.
"Giddy-yup!" she urged the horse.
The road eventually took them to another castle.
This one, however, looked more dilapidated than the one they saw back at the village.
But didn't explain the armored guards stopping in front of them, both pointing spears.
"Uh oh," Clover said. "Where's a girl's knight in shining armor when she needs one?!"
"Wait," Sean said. "The mascara brush. Maybe you use that somehow."
Clover opened her backpack, pulling the gadget in question out.
Pressing a button on the side, the brush expanded to the length of a vaulting pole.
"That's it!" Sean said, congratulatory.
She charged the horse toward the two guards, knocking them out of the way.
From there, they pressed onward to the castle.
But the horse, sensing danger, stopped in its tracks, sending its two riders flying.
Sean, thankfully, landed safely in front of the castle door, which overlooked a steep ravine.
But his companion was not next to him.
"Clover?" he asked, worriedly. "Clover, where are you?"
He was answered by the girl landing in front of him, having slipped from the mascara rod after its surface became too slippery.
Clover, her hands covered with mascara, looked incensed.
"Oozing and clumping?!" she complained. "'Mighty fine' my butt!"
"I guess you're okay then," Sean said, looking up over the castle walls.
With both holding on to the mascara rod, which fell back down shortly after she did, they expanded it further to lift them over the wall.
They landed behind it safely, with Clover closing the brush back to its normal length.
"A little mascara goes a long way!" she commented happily.
Elsewhere, Sam and Alex were hopping through the trees using their Pogo Bounce Sandals.
As they jumped back onto the ground, they assumed they were safe.
But then they heard the sound of hoofbeats.
"Don't those freaks ever give up?!" Alex complained as they say saw a group of knights on horseback heading their way.
"Quick!" Sam urged, ducking Alex's head down. "Hide!"
Sam looked up a little further to see that the group contained two carriages.
One was flanked by riders carrying banners and its rider was a young man with long blue robes, wavy blond hair, carrying a scepter and wearing a simple gold band around his head.
That had to have been the king the villagers were talking about.
The carriage wasn't nearly as elaborate, looking more like a cart than anything else.
But it carried a small, ornate chest held to the cart by ropes.
That was when three men jumped down, swiping at the knights with nothing but sticks.
The king, shaking with fear, uneasily held up a sword in anticipation.
Sam and Alex looked on in shock.
The three bandits had overtaken the knights and were now in control of the cart, then rode away.
Unfortunately, this was when one of the knights came to and saw Sam and Alex in their hiding place behind a log.
"There's two of the thieves!" he shouted.
"Stop them!" the king ordered.
Sam and Alex screamed as a net enclosed them.
The two girls struggled against it in vain as the net was weighted down by rocks.
Sam and Alex had been waiting for what felt like hours in their uncomfortable cell. The bench they had been sitting on was padded with straw, making it very itchy and not exactly helping Alex's hay fever.
And even worse, they couldn't move due to their hands being chained to the floor.
A guard came up to the window of the cell door, holding a torch.
"What are you gonna do with us?!" Alex asked.
"Let us go!" Sam demanded.
The guard didn't seem to listen to them.
"Did you really expect to get away with stealing from our beloved king?" he asked.
"I've never stolen anything!" Alex protested. "Except maybe second base in co-ed baseball!"
Little did they know that another guard was turning a wheel outside the cell, operating an unseen mechanism.
"We'll teach you that thievery will not be tolerated in this kingdom," he said maliciously.
"Why do I get the feeling this is only gonna get worse?" Sam asked fearfully.
Seconds later, she was proven right as the ceiling above them opened up... letting at least dozens of rocks cascade down on them.
The girls screamed as they were buried beneath the rocks.
Miraculously, they weren't crushed. But their vision was obscured by the number of rocks blocking out the light from above them.
Sam waited for her vision to adjust before turning to Alex.
"Quick!" she said urgently. "Our Laser Heat Curling Irons can melt the chains."
She quickly took hers out and pressing a button on the side, Alex's manacle melted away.
In no time, both girls were free.
Wandering through a tunnel they found in their cell, they eventually reached daylight, coming out through the entrance of a cave.
Unfortunately, they were greeted by...
"There they are!" a voice shouted.
They looked directly ahead to see the same mob of villagers that had chased them earlier.
And this time they looked ready to build a bonfire.
"I hope Clover and Sean are having more luck than we are," Alex said.
Sean followed Clover, being careful not to be seen.
Ducking against a well, then both sides of a doorway, the two spies made their way further into the abandoned fortress.
They looked inside the room they had come across, eyes widening in disbelief at what they saw.
The room itself was clearly ancient, but was filled with computers, monitors, cables and a cage too large to have been constructed in this time period.
"Must be one of those high-tech dungeons," Clover whispered.
"Clover," Sean whispered. "We're in the Middle Ages, none of this stuff should even exist yet!"
Then he looked at the cage, recognizing one of its occupants.
Both he and Clover gasped.
"What the-" they both started.
Sean saw something glimmer out of the corner of his eye.
In another machine, under a glass case were two crystals emitting some kind of electric spark. The spark transformed into brilliant beam of blue light, which hit the wall.
The light coalesced into the same portal that brought them there in the first place.
Sure enough, the horseman came out of it, carrying another scientist in the crook of his arm.
"So that's how he gets back through time," Sean said.
The horseman handed the unconscious scientist to one of the armored guards stationed inside the room.
"Put him in the cell with the others," he commanded in a soft, yet gruff voice.
Clover and Sean dashed into the room and hiding behind a desk, both formulated an unspoken plan.
If those crystals were how the horseman was able to time travel, then all they had to do was get them away from him.
If they could just wait until no one was looking.
That was when they heard the metallic clanging sound of footsteps behind them, and the sound of a throat clearing.
They didn't need to look to know who was behind them.
"Oopsie," Clover said.
The horseman grabbed her from behind while Sean saw two guards charging at him.
He took out each of them with a kick to the solar plexus.
Then he turned to the horseman.
But he saw he couldn't attack him without risking hurting Clover.
"Clover!" he shouted, concerned.
"Sean!" she cried out, throwing him her Expandable Mascara Brush.
He caught it, seeing where she was going.
"Get Sam and Alex!" she urged.
"I can't just leave you here!"
"I'd listen to her if I were you," the horseman said, tightening his grip on her.
"Don't worry about me!" Clover insisted. "I'll be fine!"
Despite his reservations, Sean gripped the mascara brush tightly and ran out of the room.
Expanding the mascara brush to the length Clover used earlier, he vaulted over the wall and out of the castle.
To say that Clover was uncomfortable was an understatement. What else could you be when you were chained by the neck to a chair on the top of a tower of an abandoned castle.
In front of her was a massive, metallic device that made her think of a globe, only without the map of the entire world.
The horseman came up to her from a nearby staircase.
"Let me go!" she complained.
But the horseman ignored her, coming to stop directly in front of her.
"I've never seen anyone like you," he said, gently.
"Well, you probably don't hang out on Rodeo Drive much," she countered.
That was when he took of the helmet, revealing a tanned skinned, brown haired young man with soft brown eyes.
Clover gasped.
His face was too... well, not Middle Ages.
"You're right, I'm more of a Malibu kind of guy."
"I take it you're not from around these parts," she said.
"A fashion sense and intelligent. When I become king, you'll make a great queen."
"Queen?" Clover asked, appalled.
"Yes," the horseman answered. "You see, I come from a royal lineage of kings and thanks to a goody-goody king from the Middle Ages, my family lost their throne and their wealth."
"Look, I'm sorry to hear that," Clover said sincerely. "But-"
"I don't need your pity!" he snapped. "Because with a couple of crystals and some groundbreaking weapons, I've come back from the future to knock him off his throne and change the course of history."
He looked to the globe-like device in front of him, then back to Clover, a beyond creepy smile plastered on his face.
"And you will be my queen."
He leaned forward, lips puckered.
"Ew!" Clover recoiled, obviously knowing his intentions. "Okay, now you're starting to get all kinds of creepy."
He turned to the globe shaped device and, upon him pressing a button on the same detonator stolen from the warehouse, it began to spin rapidly. As it did, an orange glow overtook it.
Instantly, Clover knew what it was.
"What are you doing?!" she asked.
"I'm going to use the E.N.D to destroy the king's castle," the horseman said with a smirk. "Reclaim my destiny and then... take over the world."
"Whatever," Clover dismissed, but as she saw the E.N.D fire a long stream of orange energy, she began to worry.
As it made its way through the air, she could only hope Sean had found the others and that they were faring better than she was.
Sam and Alex cringed at the sight of the angry mob now flanking them on all sides.
So, while they were relieved at the sight of them running, they weren't so relieved to see why.
Up above them, a long stream of fire, much like that of a comet soared through the air.
From close observation, Sam could tell that this was no comet. Because comets normally didn't send fire cascading from their tails like this was doing.
Getting over the shock, Sam propped herself on her knees, reaching into her backpack.
"I've heard of acid rain but not fire rain."
She raised the pink umbrella handle she had pulled out.
"Yeah," Alex agreed with her. "I hope when Jerry said, 'All-Weather,' he meant it."
"Wait!" a voice called out.
The girls looked ahead, and there, running out of the forest toward them, was...
"Sean!"
As he crouched down with Sam and Alex, the latter looked at him questioningly.
"Where's Clover?!"
"I'll explain later!" he exclaimed. "Right now, just get that thing working."
Sam pressed a button on the handle. A purple energy erupted from the tip, eventually forming a dome and protecting the three spies from the rain of fire.
While Sean and the girls were protected, the same couldn't be said for the E.N.D's intended target.
As the beam struck one of the castle battlements, Clover looked on with fear.
Though she was protected by an energy field that the horseman projected from his shoulders, she was not looking forward to being this guy's... queen as he put it.
They were flanked by four other guards on horseback, the E.N.D following close behind them.
"For a guy that snagged a zillion weapons from the future," she said with complaint. "You never considered adding an S.U.V to your collection?!"
As Sean, Sam, and Alex got the vantage point from behind a hill, they could see the E.N.D being carted behind a group of riders.
But Sean wasn't that surprised when he saw the occupant of one of the horses.
"Clover?!" Sam and Alex asked.
"Yeah," Sean added. "I was going to say that Clover got captured while were staking out the horseman's hideout. She sent me to find you two."
The horseman's entourage approached the castle gates, where a battalion of armed knights stood guard.
"Charge!" their leader yelled.
And they all galloped as archers fired their arrows from the castle turrets.
All for nothing, it seemed.
The arrows bounced off the shield surrounded the horseman and Clover like tennis balls against a racket.
"Sam, Sean, we've gotta do something to save Clover!" Alex said, urgently.
"The horseman's put some sort of high-tech force field around them," she pointed out.
"We're gonna have to wait until she's away from him," Sean said.
Then he turned back to the girls.
"Let's try and get into that castle."
As Clover watched the knights charge against the encroaching invaders, she knew it would be pointless.
Her suspicions were confirmed as the E.N.D was fired again.
The knights were knocked off their horses and fell into the castle moat as the ground in front of them was set ablaze.
The horseman, still gripping Clover (thankfully, she noted, not in her chest area) rode through the flames, the force field protecting them both.
The king was hiding in his room, holding his head in his hands.
Never before had his kingdom faced such weaponry. And now... well, he hated to admit it, but it looked like his kingdom was about to be destroyed.
He heard a metallic clanging sound outside his door.
"Help!" he said, fearfully. "Is someone there?"
In response the door was open, revealing the horseman and Clover.
As the king gasped, Clover took one look at him and her "love-at-first-sight face," as Sean called it, overtook her.
"Wow!" she exclaimed, giggling.
She ran toward the king, taking one of his hands, flirtatiously.
"Curb it!" the horseman said, annoyed.
The shoulder on his armor opened up, revealing a small, black cannon.
It fired a mint-green laser that sawed a groove in the floor, cut the bed in half, and left a gaping hole in the wall where a window used to be.
Clover screamed, but was, to her relief, unharmed.
The horseman stretched out his hand eagerly.
"Hand over the crown," he demanded. "Or I'll destroy the rest of the castle, the entire village, and you!"
The king drew a sword in response, but the horseman just fired another laser, and the sword snapped in half like a pencil.
The king looked down at his weapon, confused.
The horseman just laughed. "You're no match for me! Now, surrender!"
"A king isn't made by sophisticated weaponry and intimidation," the king said in defiance. "A king is made by the people who follow him. And no one will follow you."
But the horseman wasn't discouraged.
"Yeah, whatever, pal," he said, dismissively. "Hand over the crown or I'll toast you!"
Defeated, the king took of the ring-like crown and threw it at the horseman's feet.
Smirking triumphantly, he picked it up and put it on.
"Um, if you're done with me," Clover broke in. "I'll be leaving now."
"Guards!" the horseman barked, as two knights wearing yellow vests over their armor entered the room.
"Take him to the dungeon and move my equipment and the others to our new home!"
Taking this as a sign to get out while she could, Clover began to tiptoe away.
Sadly, she didn't get far as the horseman grabbed her backpack.
"Not so fast, Queenie!" he said as she screamed in surprise.
"I have a more fitting prison for you."
Sean didn't think the Cat Fight Gloves were his style, he didn't even like the color.
But for scaling a castle wall, they were the only gadget available.
As he followed Sam and Alex up the wall, he stopped momentarily as Sam looked down.
"We might not have a glowing protection shield, but these should do," she said.
Three armored guards walked below them, no doubt belonging to the horseman.
Sean saw them first.
"Gotcha!" he exclaimed, as he and the girls jumped down.
They each landed on a guard, quickly knocking them unconscious.
If Clover was mad before, she was seething now.
Not only had the horseman put her in a dress that, literally, no one had worn for centuries where she came from, but he had decided to chain her to a rock on top of one of the castle towers until she was willing to be his queen.
Not in this or any other century! Clover thought.
"That dress looks lovely on you," the horseman said, a lecherous smirk across his face.
The dress, which was purple with wide sleeves, a V-shaped neckline and a veil in the back, didn't look lovely to Clover.
Well, it would have, if not for the reason he made her wear it.
At least he had the decency to not look while she put it on. She hoped so, anyway.
"It looks like something from the Bargain Bin," she complained, referencing an old discount store her mother would take her to when she was much younger.
She sniffed one of the sleeves.
"And it smells like it too!"
Her captor came over, carrying what could only be a tiara.
"You're gonna need to lose the attitude, babe," he said. "My queen is all about obedience."
He raised the tiara, which was golden and encrusted with emeralds, nesting it in Clover's hair.
"Perfect."
But Clover just shook her head, causing the crown to fall off and crack in two upon impact with the ground.
Clover stared into the horseman's eyes, glaring in hate.
"You're never gonna get away with ruling this kingdom!" she said, angrily.
The horseman just laughed. "The kingdom? With these weapons, I'm gonna rule the entire world! And when I get back to the future, I'll be worth billions!"
Clover's expression of anger turned to one of fear.
Rounding a corner in the castle hallway, Sean felt very uncomfortable in the armor he had pilfered from the guard he had knocked out.
Not only was it uncomfortable and difficult to walk in, but the vest over it was yellow, his absolute least favorite color.
Coming to a staircase, he, along with Alex and Sam, stopped.
"This tin-can dresses are harder to walk in than my six-inch platforms!" Alex complained.
"Tell me about it," Sean agreed, as Alex found herself falling down the steps.
The sound her armor made upon impact was loud, but hopefully not so loud that it attracted attention.
Sean and Sam quickly looked up the stairs, then heard footsteps. Armored footsteps.
Quickly, they grabbed Alex by the legs and dragged her into another room close by.
Daring to take a look, Sean saw another guard peeking into the room.
Sam, covering Alex's mouth, saw the same.
But after only a glance into the room, the guard just left.
"Close call," Alex whispered.
"Yeah," Sam concurred, looking around the room which had more cameras and monitors than the A.V Club back at school.
"Looks like a surveillance room," Sean said. "He must have put it up after he attacked the castle."
The trio moved closer to one of the monitors, with Sam gasping at what she saw on one in particular.
"Clover!"
Indeed, Clover was in a medieval style dress on top of one of the towers, chained to a rock.
Clover was exasperated when she heard more armored footsteps coming up the stairs.
The sight of three armored guards was enough to send her into despair.
"Just go away!" she exclaimed. "Leave me alone!"
But then they lifted their visors.
"Clover, it's us!" Alex said.
"Oh!" Clover sighed in relief. "You have no idea what I've been going through! This guy wants me to learn to play the harp, embroider silk tapestries, and eat peacock! How gross is that?"
Alex took out a Laser Heat Curling Iron and began to use it to melt the chains.
"I'm guessing he's got an even more despicable plan up his sleeve," Sam said, putting a finger under her chin.
"Believe me!" Clover replied. "He does. He wants to make me his queen!"
"And?" Sean asked further.
"And he's using crystals to time travel back to the past and change it so he can go back to the present and take over the world."
"So, what do we do to stop him?" Alex asked, once one of Clover's hands was free.
"Apparently his crystals control everything," Clover explained, as her final chain melted away. "If we can get to them and destroy his equipment, he's toasted."
Sean took out his wallet phone.
"Let's see what Jerry thinks," he said, opening it.
"Hello, Jerry? Can you hear me? It's Sean. We need help."
But the screen just showed static.
Confused, Sean looked at notice at the top.
"The number's no longer in service?" he asked himself.
"What?!" Alex exclaimed.
"Jerry's gone!" Sean informed.
"And W.O.O.H.P's gone too!" Clover exclaimed.
"If W.O.O.H.P's gone," Sam said. "That means when the horseman changed the past, it triggered a chain reaction and changed the future!"
"Oh, no!" Alex said, realization dawning. "That means Beverly Hills doesn't exist anymore either!"
"We've got to change it back!" Clover declared, determined. "Otherwise, I've got no chance of beating Mandy in that Halloween contest!"
"You really can multitask," Sean said, trying to forget that fact that his home was now nonexistent.
"Let's go!" Sam said, as she and the others changed into their spy uniforms.
"We have no time to lose!"
Sean knew she was right, as the longer the past went uncorrected, the more likely they were to disappear completely.
Luckily for them, when they reached the surveillance room where the crystals were being kept, the device containing them was unguarded.
But the glass dome covering them was lowered.
Undaunted, Clover took out her butterfly-shaped barette and placed the pin into one of the controls.
"This should do the trick," she said.
Or so she thought. She did struggle with it at first.
"They make this look a lot easier on T.V!" she complained as the glass finally lifted itself, exposing the crystals.
"Got it!"
While she and Sean took the crystals, Sam and Alex used the Expandable Mascara Brushes to smash the device to rubble.
"Make sure you get the E.N.D.," Clover reminded.
"Where is it?" Sean asked.
They were answered by the sound of a machine powering up outside.
The looked out the window to see the E.N.D. getting ready to fire again.
"Geronimo!" they all shouted, jumping out the window, aiming for near where the E.N.D was.
"This kingdom is mine!" the horseman exclaimed in victory as the E.N.D continuously fired, setting numerous buildings in the distance ablaze.
"Not if we have anything to say about it!" Clover shouted from behind him.
He looked back to see her, along with Sean, Alex, and Sam standing on a hill.
With his face contorted in anger, he ordered the next shot to be fired at the four spies.
They all jumped out of the way as Alex and Sean barely dodged another blast that destroyed a rock before landing on a larger rock along with Sam and Clover.
"We've got to destroy the E.N.D!" Clover said. "Before it destroys everything else!"
"He's coming this way!" Alex shouted.
"Okay, guys!" Sam said, taking out the hoverboards Jerry had given them.
"Time to hover!"
Hopping on, Sean and the others soared above the others, evading a blast from the E.N.D before scaling a large cliff.
The E.N.D. fired again, punching a hole in the cliff but missing the spies.
And the blast knocked a large boulder loose and sent it tumbling toward the ground.
The horseman, sensing imminent danger, beckoned his mount to ride away before the boulder crashed down onto the E.N.D, reducing it to a pile of scrap metal now being melted by the resulting fire.
He looked at what remained of the weapon, shocked. Then his gaze lifted upwards to the four teens who had thwarted his plans.
"Come on!" Clover said. "We've got one more thing to do if we want to get back to the future!"
It didn't take long to find out where the horseman was keeping his captives.
Since he would have wanted the king and the other hostages kept in the same place, Sean suggested they go back to the ruined castle he used a hideout.
In the same cage he and Clover had seen earlier, they found the king.
And with the Laser Heat Curling Iron, he and the others were free.
While the other captives were just happy to get out of there, the king seemed especially grateful, holding Clover's hands, much to her delight.
But before she could even ask his name, she looked behind her three friends.
"Sam! Alex! Sean! Behind you!"
Sean and the other two looked back, seeing three knights as well as the horseman raising swords above them.
With a kick from each teen, they fell to the floor.
"Take that!" Sam said.
Then there was the horseman.
"And for you!" the three said in unison, donning the Cat Fight Gloves.
The horseman tried to run, but the claws in each of their gloves caught the fabric of his cape, ensuring that he could run nowhere but in place.
"Let me go!" he demanded frantically.
"Not a chance!" Sean said. "Let's see how you like being stuck in a cage."
Outside the ruined fortress, after Sean had taken the opportunity to tie up the horseman, Clover took the crown off his head.
"The crown is back where it belongs," she said, extending her arms and putting it back on the king's head.
The king Clover's hands while she stared into his eyes, dreamily.
She felt her eyes close, and her face getting closer to his.
And then the moment was ruined by the familiar sound of angry villagers.
"Right," Sean said. "Forgot about them."
But the king raised a hand. "Halt! These four are not witches!"
"The crystals, Clover!" Sam reminded. "Use the crystals!"
But Clover just looked from the stones in question to the young monarch who had been the most recent to capture her affections.
Frustrated, Sean took them and touched both of them together.
After the gust of wind and brilliant light emanated from the crystals, the same portal that had brought them appeared behind them.
As it sucked in everyone not originally from that time period, Clover held out her arm to the king longingly.
But all in vain as they fell through the portal.
Before they knew it, it was over.
When Sean took in his surroundings, he felt relief swelling in him as he saw drank in the oddly comforting scene of Jerry's office.
They had succeeded.
And Jerry was standing over them, instructing an agent to place the horseman in handcufss.
"Jerry, you're here!" Sean exclaimed.
"Everything's back to normal," Sam added.
"And the case is solved," Alex said.
"Well done, spies," Jerry congratulated.
But Clover looked forlorn.
"Hey," Sean said, noticing her face. "You alright?"
But she just looked over her shoulder.
"I wonder if I'll ever get to see that cute king again,"
Sean placed a hand on her shoulder.
"It's for the best, Clover. You're both from different time periods."
Then Clover's face lit up, before she snatched the crystals from Sean's hands.
"Not for long!"
"What are you-" he tried to say. But somehow, he knew.
"No, forget it. Have you learned nothing from today?"
"It'll just be a minute!" she insisted.
"Yeah," Sean countered. "A minute that could change the course of history! Besides, that king is already supposed to marry someone else."
He held out his hand.
"C'mon, hand 'em over."
Clover looked down at the crystals, then back to Sean.
Reluctantly, she let them fall back into his hand.
"I'm giving these to Jerry," he informed her. "Maybe he'll find a better use for them."
Beverly Hills High School-7:35 PM
The school auditorium was packed with over 500 students dressed in Halloween costumes.
Some were very predictable, for example, a mummy, a werewolf, a vampire, etc.
But some were more creative, like...
"And second place," the announcer called into the microphone. "Goes to Arnold Jackson as the periodic table of elements."
Sean, dressed in the same knight costume he'd gotten from Medieval England, folded his arms, impressed.
Sam and Alex had followed his lead in dressing as knights while Clover had insisted on using the queen outfit she was made to wear by the horseman.
Even if she didn't want to be his actual queen, she had argued, she could still use the costume.
"Get ready," Clover said to the others. "We're next!"
"And first place goes to... Mandy Luxe as a Beverly Hills-style witch!"
"What the-" all four stuttered.
Mandy, dressed exactly as the announcer described, sauntered onto the stage and up to the microphone.
"I can't believe it!" she said in a voice that she always used for false flattery.
"There's so many people I'd like to thank! First, myself for always being there for me!"
Sean's jaw dropped, as did Sam's. And Alex's. And Clover's.
"Second, myself for thinking this up!"
As Clover angrily stormed out of her seat, Sean, Sam and Alex followed her.
"I demand a recount!" she exclaimed.
Eventually, they reached the judges' table, only to find that the two seats were occupied by Caitlin and Dominique.
"You two are the judges?!" Clover asked.
"No one likes a sore loser, Clover!" Caitlin taunted.
"And face it," Dominique added. "Your costumes just aren't authentic enough."
"Forget it, Clover," Sam said with a smile. "These two Mandy clones know nothing about authenticity."
"I'll say," Sean muttered. "They have no idea what we just went through today."
"Could this day get any worse?" Clover lamented.
"Actually," Alex said. "I think it just got a whole lot better!"
Sean looked in the direction she indicated, seeing three teenage boys walking their way.
The one in the middle was dressed as a king, being flanked by two others in knight costumes.
And Clover gets a new crush in 3, 2, 1, Sean thought.
"Wow!" she exclaimed, lovestruck.
What especially pleased her was the fact that he looked like the king she'd left behind, only with shorter hair.
"Hey," he said. "Wanna dance?"
"I'd love to," she replied.
And she hooked her arms around him, swaying to the gentle music now playing.
"You'd think she'd be over kings by now," Sam commented to Alex and Sean.
"Who knows, Sammy?" Alex said.
"Yeah," Sean agreed. "They say third time's the charm."
The other two boys, dressed as knights walked over to Sam and Alex, no doubt asking the same thing.
As they began dancing, Sean tried to fight the tight feeling in his chest at Sam dancing with someone.
Sean, she's just a friend to you, he reminded himself. Just dance with someone else, and you'll forget all about it.
Walking up to a girl dressed as a princess, he extended his hand, his face neutral.
"Would you like to dance?" he asked.
The girl nodded, and as they both swayed to the music, Sean tried not to look at any of the other couples.
Particularly Sam.